YOU'RE NOT HAPPY, YOU'RE DEMENTED
by TnT6713
Summary: "You just love this life you have, the one that dissolves under your fingertips if you press too hard or think too long, like a lucid dream over which you've lost control, which is an oxymoron."


TG: hey dick

TG: *dirk

TG: whaaaat do u think

TG: it would be like

TG: if we had kids

TT: What would it be like?

TT: Inconvenient, mostly.

TG: no i mean

TG: what would they be like

TG: th kids

TG: u ever think about it?

TT: Can't really say I have.

TG: you know for an eccantric guy you can be boring as fuck sometimes

TT: Sorry, Rox.

TT: For what it's worth, I'm picturing them now. A boy and a girl.

TT: Two perfect little freaks of nature raised by people who've clearly got no business bringin' up anybody.

* * *

One of the nurseries is painted purple, with white swirling calligraphy spelling her name and constellations across the ceiling and a white shag carpet into which your feet sink every time you take a step or every time she fails to. You're not allowed to drink red wine in there. Or anything at all, really, so you pretend raspberry vodka is just water and you don't drink as much as you used to anymore, anyway. Well, you try, at least. So there's that.

The other nursery is all red and white in thick, sharp stripes and glossy hard wood flooring so he won't scrape his knees playing. You're not allowed to drink in there, either, though it has more to do with the whole child-endangerment thing in there than the whole it's-difficult-to-get-red-wine-out-of-white-shag-c arpets thing in the other nursery.

But you're trying. You deserve points for trying.

Your daughter's name is Rose—after your mother, of course, which is a lot more sentimental than you're used to being, but it was Dirk's idea, and you're happy with it. She's got bright, brilliant eyes, and thin blonde hair and all the love and magic you could ever hope to give her. She's so gentle, so fragile in your arms. You will never get over the adrenaline and gratitude that rush through your veins every time you get to hold her, to press your lips against her tiny little forehead.

Dirk didn't want to name your son Dave, but you told him that if your daughter was going to be named after your mother, then your son would be named after his brother, and that would be that. You don't know how he turned out albino—with white skin and white hair and ravenous red eyes—but you wouldn't have it any other way. He isn't nearly as tough as Rose is, but he doesn't laugh as much, either, so you're not quite sure what to make of him, but it doesn't stop that same rush of gratitude and adrenaline you get just by holding him close and whispering, _"Mommy's here."_

Dirk wasn't the happiest about the whole parenting thing, not in the beginning. He didn't want to paint nurseries and pick out cribs from IKEA and he certainly didn't want to change diapers and mumble lullabies and you're sure he still doesn't, but he doesn't complain anymore, because he sees how happy you are, how happy they make you. And he loves you when you're happy. So he doesn't complain anymore.

Instead, he kisses you slowly, touching you gently, refilling your glass just as long as you don't bring it into the kids' rooms. He builds robots to play with the kids so you won't have to spend money on stuffed animal after stuffed animal, on the sentimental value of worn-out plush crumbling between their fingers years in the future, but not many. He still makes dinner sometimes, when the mood is right, when the moon is full and the stars are bright and you're both feeling a little bit nostalgic for caves and carapaces and the familiar cobbled sidewalks of Derse. The two of you still sit on the roof sometimes and count the stars, telling the same stories over and over again, tweaking and changing minute details each time as if you don't both know how it's really supposed to go, so Rose and Dave can grow up with fairytales featuring a real prince and a real rogue, the realest forms of heroes you can imagine. You just want them to be fantastic, as fantastic as you always dreamed of being.

You love how he burns like absinthe and pepper flakes on your tongue, tingling in the back of your throat, his fingerprints branded everywhere and nowhere on your skin, as if the ridiculously gaudy wedding ring around your finger—the one you picked when you were drunk—wasn't enough of a neon sign telling the world that you're his, all his. But you don't mind. You love being reminded.

You just love.

You love this house with its clean floors and wide windows, which you always keep open, even in the winter. You love your husband, in all his quirkiness, in all his realness, in all the ways he's never let you down, no matter how often he apologizes for doing so. You love your children and the way they breathe so softly, inhale, exhale, like the human experience is still hazy around the edges. You love the way the air smells after it's been raining and you've been drinking, like dirt and cinnamon and Dirk's cologne. You love cats—_god_, you love cats—and you love how there are always a few roaming around the house because it's just as much their house as it is yours. You don't love cleaning up after the cats, though, but Squarewave takes care of the menial things now, because he knows how much Dirk loves you. You love how much Dirk loves you.

You just love this life you have, the one that dissolves under your fingertips if you press too hard or think too long, like a lucid dream over which you've lost control, which is an oxymoron.

You even love the emptiness caught on the bottom of your stomach, tugging, vying constantly for your attention, nagging you always. Yes, you even love the little bits of your life that shouldn't be made of plastic but still seem so fake, like the corners of your vision where you can't really _see_ but you can sense something's amiss—but when you turn your head to look full on, all you ever see is the overwhelming rightness and happiness of this life you've built, this life in which you have everything you love, which you love.

You love the way he whispers your name, _"Roxy,"_ like a prayer, his lips pressed to your neck, fingers tangled in your hair. You love when the world reduces to a single point, to body heat and closeness, to the spot where the two of you melt together into one beautiful creature with so many stories to tell and so many songs on your tongue.

You love the soft sounds of violins playing in the back of your mind. You love falling into bed, falling asleep in his arms, falling away from everything you used to know until you're consumed by a single thought. _This is where I belong—_

* * *

—Your eyes fumble open—like falling, but backwards—in the gritty, dreary light filtering into this gritty, dreary motel room through the single small window on the far wall, which is propped open with a pocket-sized Bible to let in humid summer air you really don't need. You can feel these stiff floral bedsheets sticking to your body the way you can feel inevitable bedbugs crawling underneath your skin: too much and all at once, but the throbbing in your head is too loud and poignant for you to do much besides wish it would stop, just like you wish you would stop having that stupid, awful dream, the one with Dirk and children and a life that isn't so disheveled and disappointing. But wishing never really helps.

John grumbles in his sleep, rolling further into you, his warm chest pressed to your back, which might be nice, if he were someone else and far less viscid in the musty motel air, which you swear contains more dust than it does oxygen.

And there's nothing _wrong_ with John, nothing at all, you just—you didn't want to wake up and find yourself here, like this, with him, _again_, and it isn't that you don't like him, it's just—you can't—you don't—he doesn't get it. He's stringy and cloying and you can feel the grimy trails of his fingers drying on your skin from last night, lingering like the foul aftertaste of something saccharine. He kisses like trickster mode. You thought you were done with that part of your life—but it keeps coming back to bite you.

You pry yourself from under John's arm, thrown haphazardly around your waist, and tumble out of the bed—if it can even be called a bed. You bite your chapped lower lip to stop stinging tears from pricking the corners of your still un-adjusted eyes as you gather in your arms the clearly tattered and faded remains of what was once your god tier outfit, the various dark blue pieces of which lay strewn about the room, mingling with the brighter, naïve blue of John's.

You dress yourself in last night's clothes, tacky and stale and smelling faintly of nostalgia for caves and carapaces and the now unfamiliar cobbled sidewalks of Derse. You feel just as dirty as the carpet in this filthy room, which looks like it might have been a dark, demented sort of pink a very long time ago. The whole place reeks of semen and sweat and regret.

You can't wait to get out of here.

Your head is still pounding, one, two, one, two, but the bottle of aspirin you always keep in your purse is woefully, mockingly empty, and your shoes don't fit quite right anymore, and you feel so bad just leaving John there without so much as a farewell.

You're about 263% sure you look like hell, but if you just don't look in a mirror until you somehow manage to stumble back home, you can pretend you never lost track of your powers.

For the Hero of Void, you sure do love wishing you could disappear.

Y'know, forever.


End file.
